Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. has filed a lawsuit against Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) in an effort to prevent it from "from illegally transferring Huawei's intellectual property (IP) to Nokia Networks ." NSN is in the final stages of completing a US$1.2 billion transaction to buy Motorola's wireless networks business.

Huawei claims Motorola's products include Huawei IP incorporated while Motorola and Huawei were mobile product development partners.

Why this matters
NSN is close to completing the acquisition of Motorola assets that will bolster its market share in North America and broaden its wireless product portfolio. If the acquisition is completed, it will make NSN a much stronger rival in the global marketplace, where Huawei is one of its fiercest competitors.

For more
Those who've followed this space for a while might see some irony here. Years ago, Huawei was on the wrong end of a couple of intellectual property flaps...

Separately, here's the lowdown on NSN's Motorola deal.

— Ray Le Maistre, International Managing Editor, Light Reading